


Kayfabe Has Died (And Gone to Hell)

by Nitrobot



Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series), Professional Wrestling
Genre: Demon True Forms, Gen, and i put so much LORE IN FUCK, this is so stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:34:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26361997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: Alastor has a wonderful, awful, horrible idea for building the reputation of Charlie's fledgeling business- dropping newly created demons off right in front of the hotel, so they can be saved from the streets before Hell has the chance to drag them even deeper into the vices that brought them there in the first place.Her first client after the grand rebranding is someone who is no stranger to Hell, who apparently Alastor has met before. Someone who really, *really* hates his brother, for something that it turns out he didn't even do.
Kudos: 5





	Kayfabe Has Died (And Gone to Hell)

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuse, other than this was really fun to write.
> 
> (AO3 doesn't let you give oneshots chapter titles but just for extra suffering this one was supposed to be 'No Kane, No Gain')

“It’s really quite simple, my dear,” Alastor told Charlie, in that tone which made her think it really wasn’t so simple at all. “I just altered the usual drop-off point for newly deceased sinners! Instead of falling out of the sky at random, you’ll have a few end up- quite literally- right on your doorstep!” He brandished his microphone towards the front door, as if he could summon a poor helpless soul on cue with just a wave of his hand. That didn’t happen, of course, but from one of the intricate windows Charlie could see the new pentagramic portal hovering overhead outside- though, it could only be seen when you looked up at it from below. It looked like the kind of thing that would  _ scare  _ new guests away, not welcome them in… but at least Alastor was actually trying to help. Between the new staff he’d brought in and his carefully crafted radio advertisements for the hotel, she was sure everyone had forgotten the disastrous interview she’d fucked up so spectacularly (well, everyone except her parents. Who had yet to return any of her calls…).

“You can just…  _ do _ something like that?” Speaking of her parents, Charlie had always thought her father had sole control over what happened to newly arrived demons in Hell. As Alastor had said, usually they just fell down in any random place from portals like the one now hanging above the front door. Or, if Lucifer had a special interest in them, they’d show up in one of the nine circles or in Pandaemonium itself- the heart of Hell, where Charlie had been raised. Otherwise, they’d find themselves thrown down to whatever city happened to be underneath them when they died. Pentagram City was a popular spawning point for newcomers, for some reason. Which suited Charlie perfectly, especially if Al’s diversion portal really worked.

“Of course  _ I  _ can do such a thing,” the Radio Demon assured her, flashing his teeth in a proud grin that only he could get away with. “Though, a few modifications were needed to make sure you don’t end up with a pile of newborn demons blocking the door. But yes, I think you’ll find business will be booming before too long.” He twirled his microphone from one hand to the other as he spoke, tapping his hooves together as he danced towards the front door. “Until then, I bid you farewell!”

“What?! Where are you going?” Charlie pulled her face away from the window to intercept him as his hand reached for the door handle. “You’re just gonna put a hole in the sky over my hotel and  _ leave _ ?!”

Alastor's grin did not budge, though his eyes closed in something almost approaching sympathy.

“You must know that I hate to abandon you, darling, but I’m afraid I have other obligations to attend to! Deals to make, stories to hear, children to torture… you understand, I’m sure. After all, you have a new guest to take care of!”

“I do?” Charlie blinked, and suddenly the lobby was filled with red light that, this time, definitely wasn’t from Alastor. It was from the window behind her, which showed a scene at her front door that could only have been made by the herald of a demon. The portal overhead was crackling, spitting out fire and thunder like it was overflowing from within; an eruption, an arrival, something that Charlie hadn’t expected for at least a few more days. Or at least hours. 

“Oh, shit, I do!” She had spent far too long standing there just staring at the fucking thing when she should have been running around making preparations- which she was doing right now, shoving Alastor out of the way so she could vault over the front desk.

“Have fun, dear!” The Radio Demon’s chuckle was joined by an audience that existed only in the hollow static from his microphone, a thousand dead laughters lingering behind as if to mock Charlie in her frantic efforts to look just a  _ little  _ professional. 

_ ‘God dammit, where’s Vaggie? Fuck it, I’ll do the check-in, where’s my pen? Fuck fuck fuck, my office is a mess- I don’t even have an office, fuck I don’t even have a  _ filing cabinet _!’  _

She heard the door slam open while she was still ducked behind the desk, and snapped back upright brandishing all the stationary she could dig up.

“Welcome to the Happy Hote-!” Charlie’s carefully-practiced greeting ended with a single suspended note that never managed to reach the ‘L’, her vocal chords frozen when her nerves caught up to what her eyes were seeing. 

...Oh, fuck it. This was one of  _ those  _ guys. The kind that showed up after catching their wives cheating, or after taking things a little too far during a bar brawl. The ‘alpha males’, the ones with all muscle and no brain. A sinner’s demon form reflected how they had seen themselves during life, or the ‘true self’ of their unchained soul (or some shit like that), so it was usually easy to tell which ones were to be avoided. And these guys ranked right up there alongside genociders and multi-level-marketing scam artists. This one in particular looked like a perfect example of his species; hardly able to fit himself through the width of the door, black and red and silver-studded all over, newly-carved horns curving up from a shaggy mane of pitch-black hair which trailed far down his back and was probably leaving lice all over the new carpet (great. Just fucking great).

That was what Charlie had assumed of her latest ‘guest’, until he lifted his head so that the wild mane was pushed aside, and she saw his face. Or was it a mask? Both? It was like a mask  _ fused  _ to the face underneath, stark-red but with slashes of black like claw-marks scarring the surface. There was no space for a mouth that she could see, and at first she’d thought there were no eye-holes either. But they were there; when the demon blinked, the eyes disappeared into the black around them so that they couldn’t be seen at all. And when they were open, when he stared at her, the familiar glare of hellfire within was unmistakable. 

‘ _ Oh shit. Oh  _ **_shit_ ** _. _ ’ This was not just a pissed-off demon. This was one who had seen and done some serious shit, the kind of shit that earned you a personal invitation to Lucifer’s sitting room so you could share stories over tea about how deliciously evil the shit really was. And the closer he came, the closer his clawed boots brought him to the front desk, the more Charlie could feel how dangerous, how  _ powerful _ he really was. 

What the fuck  _ was  _ this thing? And what the fuck was he doing  _ here? _

As Charlie’s mouth hung open and she waited for the beast before her to speak, or growl, or whatever he could do without a mouth, her view was suddenly taken over by Alastor’s back as he quite literally appeared out of nowhere (as he was so fond of doing to scare the shit out of her).

“Why, do my eyes deceive me?” Alastor’s voice was a cheerful burst of static that rivalled his joy at seeing Charlie for the first time. “My goodness, Kane, how you’ve grown! I almost didn’t recognise you!”

The demon- Kane?- was only slightly taller than Alastor, though he seemed to tower as he peered down at the Overlord like he was a bug on the ground. The eyes in the black didn’t seem as angry now, but it was still difficult to look at them for any length of time. Yet Charlie was sure that Al didn’t even flinch as he stared up at this demon… how the Hell did they know each other? Not even Kane seemed to know the answer to that as two black stripes- eyebrows, Charlie realised now- furrowed across the mask that was a face and the face that was a mask. 

“I don’t know you.” The accusation came from nowhere, though Kane’s square jaw moved as if a mouth was speaking. It wasn’t the kind of voice one would expect coming from a body like that, not a Hellhound snarl nor guttural grunt. It was a voice that was still, somehow, somewhat human, with only an echo of the depths that it had now fallen so far into. Still not something you’d want to hear in a dark alleyway in Imp City, though.

“Yes, yes, I imagine you wouldn’t remember, what with you being so young at the time,” Alastor told him with a chuckle that sounded downright paternal. “Well, let me personally welcome you back home! And I can assure you, there’s no better place than here to hang up your…” The Radio Demon paused to lean in, making himself look even smaller compared to Kane’s hulking mass as he investigated. “Mask? A very detailed one, I must say. If this form is any hint of what you were like on Earth, you must have been a sight to behold!”

Charlie had now had just about enough of Alastor’s cryptic bullshit, and she was a little scared that if she didn’t step in then Kane would try to eat him right there in the lobby (not a good look for any fledgling business). “Al, what are you-?”

“Anyway, I really must be off now.” Alastor quite literally spun on his heel, using his microphone as a cane as he strutted over to the front door with a farewell over his shoulder. “Take care, my dear Charlie, and you as well, good sir. Though I trust we’ll meet again soon!” His humming of an old song drowned out any attempt Charlie might have made to call him back and demand an explanation, even as her mind protested his departure.

‘ _ Don’t leave me here alone with…’  _ The door closed and sent all the windows rattling in their whirling panes, reminding Charlie that this was a big place, that it was  _ supposed  _ to be teeming with souls. That she should be  _ happy  _ to have a new arrival, in this place that had Happy right in the name. 

‘ _ New house rule,’  _ she told herself with a gulp.  _ ‘Don’t accept guests while Al is still in the building.’  _ She’d already had to make about five new rules just for Angel Dust, cause he kept finding ways around them that she  _ technically  _ couldn’t kick him out for. But at least he wasn’t here to ruin the reception. Neither was Husk, or Niffty, or even Vaggie apparently.

Just her and… Kane. Scary, terrifying, ominous and looking at her like he was considering growing some teeth to throw her around like a chew toy. Lovely. Wasn’t she supposed to be used to looks like that by now?

If there was any small consolation, it was the fact that as soon as Alastor was gone out the door (this time Charlie made sure he actually left by sweeping her eyes around the lobby) the scary-as-fuck aura around Kane seemed to go away as well. So the thick feeling of fear in the air was just vibes from Alastor all along. Phew. Not to say that Kane wasn’t still scary-as-fuck in his own way, as he stood there in the high-vaulted entrance hall making it look more like a closet from how fuck-off huge he was. He wasn’t an Overlord, sure, not even  _ close  _ to the likes of Vox and Valentino, but there was still something… off. Something  _ wrong  _ about this guy, this newcomer who apparently wasn’t new at all. He had some kind of past with Alastor, at least, and that was fucking scary enough as it is.

“Er, don’t mind Al,” Charlie excused after an awkward moment of trying to blink away her regrets, “he just likes to confuse people and… show-off. All the time.” She flashed a smile that she knew would have been weak no matter what mood she was in (when it came to talking about the likes of Alastor, it was a miracle she could muster a smile in the first place). Then she forced herself into her heavily-practiced routine, managing to slip into it only when she turned her back on Kane.

“Come in, come in! Please, take a seat wherever is comfortable for you.” She gestured to the spiked sofas that decorated the lobby, offering a waiting area that would have been useful in a place that saw any modicum of daily business. Dress for the job you want, decorate for the place you’re pretending to be… Charlie thought her father might have laughed at that, if he was here. After he’d finished laughing at everything else, of course. She swore to herself she’d soon have an actual office, some place of privacy where she could vet new guests and ease them gently into their new lives after death, but for now this was the best she could do. 

Not that Kane seemed to mind, at least. As he sat down on the chair opposite her, she tensed as she heard the deadwood creak and splinter under his immense weight, only breathing a sigh of relief through her nose when it miraculously didn’t break.

“So, er, like I was saying…” Charlie crossed and uncrossed her legs over and over to buy herself time before she’d need to make eye contact again. “Welcome to the Happy Hotel! My name is Charlie, and I’ll help you with whatever you need to get settled in.” She eventually froze in a position where her right leg was over her left, her hands folded tightly together on her knee. Part of her wondered that maybe if she stayed still long enough, Kane would realise he was in the wrong place and leave. Or he’d get bored. Or he’d forget she was there and go find something else to possibly maim. That was how predators worked, right? They couldn’t see you there if you didn’t move? Maybe that was how Alastor seemed to go invisible sometimes- he just stood there, and blended in with whatever scenery surrounded him at that moment. He  _ was  _ definitely gone, right? Charlie resisted the urge to look around for him, keeping her eyes glued to Kane’s no matter how uncomfortable it was for both of them.

Eventually, an Earth eternity later, Kane narrowed those glaring coal-spots at her, and the eyeholes in his mask seemed to narrow too. 

"This is a hotel?" He still didn’t sound like how he should have, how anyone would logically expect him to, he didn’t even sound muffled behind the mask that must have been stretched over wherever his mouth was. But he sounded  _ curious _ . That was good, very good. It meant Charlie wouldn’t lose him yet, not unless she wanted to. 

"Indeed it is!” she chirped. “We cater to those who wish to redeem themselves. And, y'know, go to Heaven. So they don't die. Again. When the angels come." Her eyes darted away just for a second, just to give them a well-needed break while her grin picked up the slack. Kane even seemed to follow her lapse, betraying how closely he was really watching her. At the slight movement of his neck, a ragged lock of black hair fell across his shoulder and hung there like a tentacle.

“I don’t have money.” He stated it as a fact, nothing to be ashamed of or pitied for. And of course he wouldn’t have any, if he really arrived just a few minutes ago.

“Oh, no, that’s not a problem,” Charlie informed him. “We don’t charge guests who dedicate themselves to treatment.” That was the one thing she refused to budge with Alastor on- he wasn’t in it for profit, and neither was she, though he seemed a little irritated that it meant he’d be bankrolling all the inevitable bills. But in the end, he seemed to figure that it was a small price for keeping himself amused. 

“Treatment?” Kane’s confusion made his shoulders tense, like he was about to lash out. But before Charlie could flinch in anticipation of something expensive being broken, he just directed the twitch down his arms to his hands curled in his lap- one was bare red scales, the wrist surrounded by spikes, each finger tipped with a claw that could have easily cut through bone with enough grip pressure. Though, strangely, the other hand was covered in black- not scales like the rest of his dual-toned skin, nor dead torn flesh like his mask seemed to emulate. This was a simple glove, or some kind of gauntlet, and when the fingers within flexed it seemed like it would tear open from the claws kept trapped within. But the fabric, or whatever it was made from, held tight. Like the mask, it seemed like it was fused onto his wrist. Charlie tore her eyes away before he noticed her staring.

“Ah, I’m just making you more confused, aren’t I?” She said it as an apology, cursing herself for not structuring her intro speech a little better for demons who probably didn’t even know where they were. “It’s a lot to take in at first, but don’t you worry! I’m here to give you all the help I-”

“This is Hell, isn’t it.” This was one question that Kane didn’t make sound like one. He knew it as soon as he said the word out loud, Charlie could tell, and it didn’t phase him one bit. No denial, no grief, just headfirst into acceptance. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who knew what grief even was.

“Yeah. The fire and brimstone and charming atmosphere are a bit of a giveaway, huh?” Charlie tried to laugh at herself, but the extra effort was more than even her smile could handle. It collapsed right there on her face, and she was too tired to even feel bad about not holding it up a little longer. Kane didn’t seem the type to really care, and he didn’t even register that anything had changed. 

Maybe Charlie could get through this in one piece after all. As she sat back, her sigh making her sag into the chair, her hand brushed against something at her left. She glanced down, and inhaled sharply once she realised what the thin folder lying next to her was. 

‘ _ Where the fuck did…?’  _ It hadn’t been here all along, surely? She would have noticed it, she  _ should  _ have noticed it. Unless…

She hadn’t seen what Alastor had been up to while she was hiding behind the front desk. He could have left it there for her to find. He  _ must  _ have, he was the only one who could get his claws on something like this. 

Every sinner had a sin record, Lucifer’s way of keeping track of who really deserved to enjoy his company all the way down here. Charlie didn’t know if her father personally authored them or if they just appeared out of nowhere and he kept them under guard, but she did know that they were really fucking hard to come by. They were the kind of things turf wars were fought over, the kind of things that the likes of Valentino could keep demons enslaved forever with. Even Charlie herself, darling daughter of Lucifer, would have had better luck throwing that asshole Hell-tourist Virgil back out on his ass than ever laying hands on a sin record from her father’s vaults. 

After all, if someone’s record was destroyed, then there’d be no proof that they were ever a sinner. And there’d be nothing to stop them ascending towards Heaven. Bad business for Dad, if people could just check them out like library books and rip them to shreds as a get-out-of-Hell-free card. 

(Though, of course, it wasn’t nearly so easy to destroy them permanently. They were fireproof, waterproof, airproof, pretty much everything except from Divine Judgement-proof. And Lucifer kept backups of the most important ones; war criminals, dictators, vegans, etc).

With all this in mind, Charlie had no idea what the fuck to do with Kane’s record now lying in her hands. Other than open it, and get a good look at what she was really dealing with. If she was lucky, maybe there’d be something about what the fuck Alastor had to do with it all.

“So… Mr Kane.” She read off the first line, surprised that that really  _ was _ his name. Human parents could come up with some strange shit. “The same name you had in life, I see. You know, you can make up a new one if you want.” She looked up at him as she made the suggestion. “Most new demons prefer a name that doesn’t remind them of Earth… it helps them ease in better.” Though some, like Alastor (she assumed), didn’t want to fix what wasn’t broken. And those that  _ did  _ go for something different usually chose tryhard edgy shit, or really bad puns.

There was a beat as Kane thought, maybe considering the opportunity. “I’ll stick with what I know.”

“Alrighty then!” Charlie skimmed through the rest of the file as much as she could, continuing her speech at the same time. “Now, I imagine you’re feeling very disoriented right now. You only arrived in Hell… well, about five minutes ago. I’ve heard it can be very jarring, the sudden shift from death back to second life.” So far in her stalling she’d seen his date of birth (May 19th, 1970), his occupation on Earth (wrestler? Interesting), and his known relatives (parents both dead, an older brother still alive). That was just the first page- the list of all his sins would begin on the next one, after the description of his demise.

“Death?” Kane repeated the word like he wasn’t quite sure what she meant by it.

“For instance,” she started to explain as she turned the page, “those who have been decapitated might not even realise they’ve got a new head. Some who’ve died from certain diseases might not be able to walk, or see. And in your case-” Her eyes scanned down the file, finding empty fields where she was expecting dates and gory details. It was completely blank, like it was a bare template that hadn’t been finished yet.

“There’s… no cause of death.” No date of death either, which made sense if there was no given cause. Which made no sense at all. 

“Guess I’m not dead, then,” Kane offered, as if he had no idea why that was impossible. Only the hellborn could live in Hell without dying first, and human visitors didn’t live very long. Kane wasn’t hellborn, or human anymore, yet he was still  _ alive _ ?

“Then how did…? If you…?” Charlie stuttered aimlessly for a few seconds before she remembered a key detail- Alastor’s hands were all over this shit. Of course it would have something to do with him, some deal that could make a human into a demon without giving up their life first. And she’d only know the truth of the matter the next time she saw the bastard. “Uh… nevermind.” She buried her mumble in the next page of the record, which at least was filled with all the expected stories about crimes, sins, debauchery, depravity and jaywalking.   
“This place has changed.” Kane grumbled as if he hadn’t heard Charlie, his eyes rolling around so his head didn’t have to move. “Since I was last here.”

Charlie blinked in surprise, raising her head from the list of various pyromaniac crimes Kane had apparently committed in his life. “Oh, you  _ have _ been to Hell before? When was that?” She’d thought Alastor had just been talking bullshit, trying to disorientate her newest guest to sabotage the hotel even more than it already was (mostly thanks to Angel Dust). But if Kane could remember being here before… maybe he was hellborn after all. Or maybe he could at least remember how he knew Alastor, what deal he’d made with him or scandal he’d been caught up in to be sent all the way down here.

He seemed like he was  _ trying _ to remember something, as he bowed his head and his mane hung down like tangled curtains over his face, hiding the thin seams of his mask. And as he reached a conclusion, he stared out at her like a tiger lurking amidst a dark forest of hanging vines. 

“A long time ago.” The eyes were tiger, and the growl was all demon. Like he’d just remembered what he was supposed to be. Charlie felt like she was in danger all over again.

“W-well, Hell is always evolving- or, should I say  _ re _ volving. Like a door. Souls always coming in, and… even more going out. Permanently.” She coughed as she closed Kane’s record, as if having it open any longer might make all his sins materialise right there in front of her, around her, within her. She was suddenly aware of how flammable all the furniture was (which was the peak of irony in Hell of all places, but it was all that her Father was willing to spare for her venture. All the apple and snake engravings made her simultaneously miss and hate him).

“Anyway.” Charlie spread out her arms like wings, like she could chase away her doubts flying around her head like baby imps. “I’m very glad you found yourself here, Kane. Well, not  _ Hell _ here, I mean, but  _ here  _ at the Happy Hotel! The one and only rehabilitation center for demons, sinners, husband-killers, wife-beaters, manics, addicts-”

“What about people who burned down their home, with their parents trapped inside?” Kane interrupted as she was counting each kind of damned soul off on her fingers. 

“Yes, yes, of course!” she assured him, a little reassured herself that he acknowledged such a thing was a sin. “The hotel welcomes all!”

“So my brother will end up here too.” Kane either swelled in size or leaned forward slightly- either way, Charlie felt herself pushing her chair back against the floor to keep the distance between them both. 

“I… can’t say for certain. Depends on how much he’s sinned.” She rubbed at her wrists, a subconscious reaction to realising that the spiked wristband- what she’d  _ thought  _ was a band- was actually thick bolts going right through his skin and bone, anchoring his glove in place. She only saw it now because she was trying not to look up at his face, his mask, whatever it really was...

“You can take that mask off if you want, you know,” she offered, a weak gambit to figure out if it  _ was  _ a mask at all. “It’s just you and me in here.” She regretted saying that as soon as it came out, an admission that there were no witnesses, no one around who could stop him if he really wanted to cause some mayhem. 

_ ‘New house rule,’  _ she thought, ‘ _ don’t accept guests without  _ someone  _ in the building.’ _

Kane seemed to flex his shoulders again, and this time the muscle ripple went through his neck to the face and whatever was lurking, writhing beneath the mask. “It stays on.”

So he could take off if he wanted. That didn’t make Charlie feel any better. “Okay. Whatever makes you feel most at ease during this… difficult transition.” She felt like they’d gone over a hurdle at least, some kind of uncomfortable elephant in the room now thrown out a top-story window to splat on the ground outside and never trouble them again. It  _ could  _ come off, but chances are that it wouldn’t. Nothing to worry about. 

Kane now looked at his hands, the covered one holding the bare as hidden claws traced the edges of the naked ones. Charlie found herself wondering how much of the red on him was blood, just as he asked a question she hadn’t thought to prepare for.

“I can’t go back, can I?”

She’d heard the same question hundreds of times, from hundreds of sinners, from waiting outside Lucifer’s grand office as a child. Some demons within who were lucky or stupid enough to find audience with her father, to plead for a second chance; spending hours before him with a well-prepared speech of their family, their friends, all the people who miss them, all those who could not live without them. They would look to his grinning face for any hint of mercy, any drop of solace that would not be found here or there or anywhere else, would try all sorts of tactics and bargaining to wring even a single tear from his desert-dry eyes. Lucifer would entertain them for however long their appeal would last for, not moving a muscle as he patiently waited for the penny to drop, for the true weight of anguish to hit them when they realised that, no, they could never go back. He had told Charlie that those moments were his favorites, that they made all the work worth it. If he was entertained enough, he’d even let the poor demons return to whatever meagre death-living they could find in this world, trudging away from Pandaemonium and trying not to be robbed or raped on the way back.

That was the moment that Charlie decided to build her hotel. If the sinners could not return to Earth, then they could at least go somewhere better.

“I’m… afraid not,” she told Kane, looking down at her own hands stained with all her father’s spilled souls. “Dead or not, once you’re here the only real way out is through the angels.” She left out some spells that the Overlords knew to open temporary portals to Earth, since those couldn’t erase the mark of Hell from anyone, the mark that would soon drag you kicking and screaming back down whether or not you were ready to return. “Either they change their mind about you and let you go up to Heaven, or… they get rid of you. For good.”

“I don’t want to go to Heaven.” 

Charlie’s head snapped back up, and she had no idea what to say to Kane’s casual assertion. More than a few demons liked to posture and brag about all their crimes, and insist that Heaven was never their goal in life or death. But if they ever had the chance to leave behind the Exterminations for a cushy life on a cloud, then they’d take it in the bite of an apple. The only issue was that no-one ever got the chance, cause no-one wanted to put in the effort. 

“I need to stay here,” Kane continued, deadly serious and just plain deadly. “To meet my brother. To make him pay.”

Charlie blinked as puzzle pieces fell into place, like the lines of scarred black on Kane’s body locking in tight with the red around them. “Ah, I get it…” She flipped to a page at the start of his sin record, ensuring she got the details correct. “You’re mad you didn’t kill him along with Mom and Dad. In that case, I see why you wanna keep your name. My father sure would get along with you.” If there was one thing Lucifer loved other than musicals and candy, it was anything that reminded him of the Old Testament. One of his favorite pastimes was torturing the Evangelicals who tried to fend him off with spritzes Holy Water. 

But before Charlie could feel bad about herself for remembering him again, Kane swept in close; leaning down, his shielded hand trembling on his knee while the claws of his other started to churn against the fabric of his seat. The demonskin leather ripped and charred as his eyes flared, his jaw stretching like a snake’s to swallow its prey whole, his skin starting to sweat from fire building within. Charlie had seen it before- she thought she had, at least. It meant he was about to quite literally explode.

“I didn’t  _ kill _ …  _ he  _ was the one who killed them,” Kane told her, and his face seemed to rip apart along an invisible seam as his eyesockets became a wildfire, and his horns grew out of his skull into jagged hooks. “ _ HE  _ burned them alive,” he snarled through a newly appeared mouth, dripping pieces of melting red in front of teeth like bleached glass, “and  **_HE_ ** will get what’s fucking coming to him when I-!”

“Actually, Kane…” Charlie couldn’t hide a squeak of panic as she rushed to find the proof in his record that would calm him down and spare her the incoming firestorm. “It says here that  _ you  _ were the one who did all that.”

Kane hung there frozen, half-standing off the ruined leather couch, eyes burning back down to meagre coals as his momentary mouth dissolved back into nothing, his horns retreating back into stumps. The fire fizzled out, and steam came off him in a thin mist as he sank back down with a heavy  _ creak _ and  _ thud _ .

“...I was?” 

“Uh huh. Right here in your file.” She turned it around to show him the damning line, breaking the cardinal rule of not letting a demon see their own record but fuck it, just her having this one on hand was enough of a rule break that she doubted it mattered much. And if it would stop him from burning her hotel down in misguided rage, all the better.

He was reading it, and all the other accusations that floated up and down the page. The twitch of his eyes betrayed where they were looking.

“I killed our parents?” He said it like a statement, like it should have been easier to believe than it really was. “My… our mother?”

“Yes, Kane. A person’s sin record never lies.” Charlie pulled the file away, and he made no move to tear it from her grasp- in fact, he made no move at all. “It shows every single bad deed, in chronological order. That’s why the fire is near the top.” 

“Does my brother have one of those?” Kane’s stare was blank through the uncombed curtain of his hair.

“Everyone has one. But it only materialises when they die, as an accumulation of everything they’ve done. So, I can’t tell you what would be in his record until he dies.” The only ones who didn’t have some kind of file in Hell were babies, the stillbirths and never-meant-to-be’s. They went straight to Heaven, most of the time. Sometimes the tiny souls would be intercepted before they reached the pearly gates and plucked from the sky, to be reincarnated as a hellborn. But Charlie hadn’t been told much about how that worked, probably for the best. 

“And when he dies,” Kane asked slowly, “will he end up here as well?”

“Only if his record is damning enough. There’s another one too, the virtue list, that keeps track of good deeds. But only angels have access to that. It helps them decide which demons to purge first, during the… Exterminations. And if a soul’s virtues outweigh their sins at death, they’re allowed into Heaven.” Charlie knew that much, but really had no idea how the virtue list worked post-mortem. A person could accumulate more sins in Hell depending on their actions, so wouldn’t it make sense that good deeds would be amended as virtues? That assumption was what her whole venture had hinged on, and she didn’t even know if it was true. But the fact that Lucifer hadn’t tried to lie about it, to convince her that it was a waste of time with that one fact only he could know for sure, gave her some glimmer of hope that she was right about it all. 

“My brother can still do enough good to save himself, then,” Kane declared, apathetically at best and bitterly at worst. “But it’s too late for me.”

Charlie bit her lip, fighting with the urge to lunge forward and give Kane a hug. Unprofessional at best, suicidal at worst. Instead she settled for making eye contact, no flinching or fear or doubt in her gaze.

“You’re wrong. It’s not too late. That’s what I’m here for. If I can redeem enough souls before the next Extermination, if I can prove to the angels and everyone else around that just because someone’s in Hell doesn’t mean they’re a lost cause-”

“Okay.”

Charlie blinked because of the unexpected interruption, and lost all her momentum at once. “Okay?”

Kane glanced away, red eyes narrowing as a groan whistled through the seams of his mask. A sigh. “If you’re really that desperate, and if there’s really nowhere else to go, then I’ll stay. Just don’t start crying, or whatever.”

Charlie stopped herself from leaking just in time, holding her hopeful tears in with sheer willpower even as she leaped up to her feet. “That’s… that’s great! Wonderful! I mean, of course, absolutely, you’ll just love it here!” 

Kane made another sound, this one indecipherable, as Charlie couldn’t help but dance to herself with her frantic feet. “If my brother is deserving of death, then he’ll come here when it’s his time. And I’ll be waiting for him. I just need to stay alive until then.”

Charlie’s cheerful hopping stalled somewhat, though her smile was a little harder to budge. “A selfish reason is better than none, I guess…” She skipped over to the front desk, the mysterious sin record stashed away in a drawer with its job done for now. Then she cracked her knuckles and lashed her ankles together, purely business now that she’d let herself celebrate the start of her journey to Prove Every Motherfucker Wrong. 

“So, let’s talk about what you can expect around here- and, in turn, what we’ll expect from you.” It was the same spiel she’d given Angel Dust when he first arrived, though she had a feeling Kane would be more receptive to it. “You’ll have free lodging and use of our kitchen and dining room, and access to wonderful therapy workshops that’ll get you one step closer to Heaven in just a few short weeks! Or… in your current case, they’ll help the angels overlook you when they decide to pay a visit. We also have a bar, open to those without any existing addictions- two drink maximum per day,” she gestured over to where Husk would usually be stationed. “And we have an in-house clinic to help with drug withdrawal.” She was grinning again already, still overwhelmed at how many facilities Alastor had managed to bring in for them all (though, despite that, she hadn’t forgotten that next time she saw the fucker she’d be interrogating the shit out of him).

Kane was still sitting on the lounge, squeezing his knee with covered claws. “What about a gym?”

“Oh, yes, we have that too-”

“Good enough.” He lifted himself up, somehow with both great effort and great ease as he exhaled heavily; throwing his neck back to pull his thick hair away from his face, letting smoke leak out from his pores as his clawed boots thudded towards the elevator that definitely wouldn’t be able to take his weight.

“You’ll need your room key!” Charlie called out, scrambling for a number that would keep him on the stairs. “Let’s see… 134. Right next to the gym, and on this floor!” She dropped the labelled key into his bare hand like a drop of rainwater hitting the ocean, trying not to look at the crusted blood around the spiked bolts in his wrist. “Will you be able to find your way around?”

“Yeah. I know how hotels work.” He closed his hand in a fist, and Charlie was half-expecting to hear a  _ crunch  _ of the key being crushed in his immense grip. But the glove seemed to contain his strength, and maybe other things she was better off not knowing about. And, more surprisingly, he didn’t skulk off immediately towards the first-floor rooms. Instead he turned his head left and right, as if seeing the lobby for the first time through narrowed and calm eyes. 

“This one looks a little nicer than what I’m used to,” he confessed. “Who else stays here?”

“Currently there’s only one other guest, Angel Dust.” Charlie forced herself not to groan as she said his name. “He’s been with us for two weeks now, and he’s made a lot of progress. So far he’s only had one severe relapse and property damage spree!”

“That’s progress?”

Charlie’s grin, stubborn as it was, couldn’t hold itself against the depth of Kane’s cynicism. “...At the rate things are going, yeah. Pretty much.”

Kane said nothing else, not even a grunt or snort as he turned away to find his room.

“Enjoy your stay!” Charlie called out after him from the desk. “And remember, happiness waits at the other side of the rain-!”

There was a sound of a door slamming, and the windows rattled once more in their frames.

“...bow.” Charlie could feel herself slumping, falling right on top of the desk with a drawn-out groan. She’d just had her first (well, technically second) guest, and she still felt like shit. Was that just how Hell was? Happiness was only ever allowed at other people’s expense? No wonder her father smiled all the time. Just like she tried to, but for all the opposite reasons. 

Alastor smiled a lot, too. She’d liked that about him at first. But now she had to wonder what he was really smiling about. What he was really planning for her hotel, and what the likes of Kane had to do with it.

_ ‘Al, what the fuck have you been doing up there?’  _ Charlie dragged herself over to one of the abused windows, tracing the stained apple design with her tired eyes as she watched the grey skies for a glimpse of Heaven, or Earth, or just something that wasn’t evil. At the edge of her vision the portal above the entrance shimmered, threatening to deliver even worse on her doorstep in due time. 


End file.
